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There are many keyboard shortcuts you can use when you are typing and editing a Text or Word document or an email post and want to cut something out, or perhaps copy and place in another document or email. In this post, I am highlighting the ones I use most frequently.

In another article on Technology for Seniors Made Easy I wrote about how to enlarging and reducing fonts so you can read posts and pages more easily on the web. In that one we discussed how to use the Control key (on the PC) or Command key (on Mac) with the + (plus) or – (minus) keys.

In the screen shots below you see the ones I most use. I added the red lines to so you can see them more quickly.

In editing the first thing necessary to do for most of these commands is to highlight that section that you want to work with (cut or copy and place in another form)

The following is a followup on my post on email courtesy. In this post I am addressing protecting the privacy of people whose addresses are sent within the body of emails that you may forward. You can eliminate strangers seeing these addresses by using the “BCC, i.e. “Blind Copy” field.

Following is a quick explanation of how to create that BCC field.

Directions below are for the Mail program in my MAC and the Windows Mail program in my PC – Windows Vista program.

In both cases the first thing necessary is to Open a NEW email. Then,

in the MAC Mail program, click on:

1 – View and

2 – Select/check the Cc and Bcc Address Fields.

You’ll note there is now a section for names to be “Blind Copied”.Entering names/e-mail address –

1 – Simply start typing the addresses to which you wish to send. Place commas between each email address.

Or, you can:

1 – Click on the Address book symbol in the top section of the email form.

2 – Select the name to whom you wish to address your email. The highlight it.

3 – Click on the symbol for the field you wish to place the name/address – To: Cc: Bcc.

In WINDOWS mail –

1 – Open a New Message

2 – Click on View in the top bar

3 – Select/check All Headers. The Bcc is added to the From: section

Using your PC Address Book to add Names to address fields

1 – Click on Tools in to top menu bar of your email

2 – Select Select Recipients from your Address Book

3 – Click on the appropriate button of the field in which you want the name entered. Continue select names until you are complete.

4 – Click on OK and the addresses to which you want to email will be filled in, with semi-colons between, in the field where you want then to be.

If you’ve learned anything new here, or have questions, please make note in the comments below. To your having fun while being courteous.

Do you ever receive an email with a bunch of names, a message and a bunch more names? Very often, those of us using email regularly, do receive an interesting story, joke or even important information. It seems to be a natural tendency to want to share what we’ve received with others.

I occasionally do this myself, abiding by the following rule. From my perspective, common courtesy and respect for privacy of others dictates DELETING all the names and addresses that show within the body of the email.

The usual way that people are passing on these message is to simply click the “forward” icon, or arrow, in the piece of email received. They, then, start typing in all the addresses of their friends in the new email form that comes up.

When the list is complete, they simply click SEND. Many times, it seems, that they do not pay attention to all the other addresses from prior forwards that have remained in their email body.

Even if they delete them, unless the names of their friends are placed into the BCC: (blind copy) field, it’s likely that their friends’ names will show up in someone else’s forwarded email. (If you do not know how to do it, see my post on how to set up your emails to include BCC field)

Again, please be sure also to delete the sender’s name and email address and delete all the names and email addresses that might have been picked up when you hit forward.

Final Note on this post:
1 – Be sure to check that the email addresses you’ve entered are, in fact, those of the people you do mean to address. Sometimes, as we type, the computer picks up an address similar to the one we think we are including. It could turn out to be a totally different person.

Do you ever receive email where the type (font size) is very small and difficult to read? Or, conversely, you go to an Internet web page and, again, the font is very small and challenging to follow?

The are a few ways that you can make what you want to read easier on your eyes. It’s my intent, with Technology for Seniors Made Easy, to make using your computer and the web as simple as possible. Thus, rather than give you drop down menus instructions and a lot of details, I direct you to your keyboard.

The above image is a photograph of my Mac electronic keyboard. The process is the same for whatever keyboard you have. There are 3 keys only that you have to be aware of:

The Control Key (PC) – Command Key (Mac)

The + (plus) Key

The – (minus) Key

In e-mail –
To Enlarge the font (type) size for for reading, simply place your mouse in the body of the email and click on the Control Key (on a PC) or the Command Key (on a Mac) and the + (plus) Key. Keep clicking until the print is readable for you.
To go back and reduce the size, simply click on the Control Key and the – (minus) Key

On Web Pages –
Simply place your mouse on the web page and use the same process –Control + or Command + to enlarge and Control – or Command – to make smaller. The whole page will increase or decrease in size, depending on which keys you use.

UPDATE – Added Tip – Using the Control Key and Your Mouse
After posting this I was informed that, if you have a Scroll Wheel on your mouse you can also Increase Size by holding down the Control Key (both PC and Mac) on your keyboard and simply Scrolling forward with your Mouse. It will enlarge the page and scrolling back will reduce it to its original size. It will not go smaller than the original size.

While testing this, I discovered that I could use the same process to increase the size of the fonts as I was typing this post and when typing an email. This is great, should you want to see the print really large as you work, yet don’t want to, or can’t change the actual size on the web.

Then I went to Facebook, where I’m often frustrated when going to type my posts, reading what I typed. This Control >Scrolling process for seeing the letters larger as we type works here also!

NOTE: The person sharing this tip is a PC user. I immediately went to my Wireless Mouse on my Mac to see if it works there also. The SAME RESULTS!

REMEMBER – You MUST keep the Control Key depressed as you are scrolling for this to work!

Final Note: These easy ways will work most of the time. There may be a couple of exceptions. If you have any questions, please post them in the comments section of this post.

Before I purchased my iPhone I had no desire to have text messaging on my cell phone. It was only after I finally purchased my iPhone that I got into text messaging.

Texting is a feature that has to be set up first with your phone service provider. If you have not set up a plan with your provider, you may be in a situation where you will be charged for both incoming and outgoing text messages. More than likely your phone company has a package they will offer you that can combine with other services. Shortly after I did choose to add unlimited texting to my phone service, I found it most helpful in my business and then in a wide variety of other situations.

Now, on to how to work with text messages on your iPhone.

For the visual demonstration, click on the arrow to see the video. If you wish to view it full screen, click on square icon on the bottom bar to the far right.

1 – To start, click on Message icon on your main screen. All your messages, until deleted, will appear in a single list, grouped by person or number.

2 – To SEND a message click on the pencil icon in the upper right corner on your screen.

3A – In the “To:” spacestart typing in the cell phone number to which you want to send a message OR tap the + button in blue on the right. The latter will bring up your Contacts listing.

3B – If you are keeping your Address Book/Contacts List current, either directly on your phone or synchronized with your computer, you can type in the name of the contact you want to reach. As your phone starts recognizing the letters, it will bring up a list of those that match what you have typed thus far.

You can click on the one you want to use and it will pop into that space. Make sure you select the cell number. You can add another number or name by simply starting to type once again, or you can click on the + sign in the blue circle. That will bring up your contacts and you can select from there.

Next, in the elongated oval space next to the camera (Text Message in grey), type your message. When finished tap Send, in the green button. Your message will then show up for you in green or blue.

4 – RECEIVING MESSAGES – When your phone receives a message, it will notify you on your home screen with a white number in a red circle in the upper right of the Messages icon.

Clicking on that brings you directly to the message. If you wish to reply, simply enter your message in the text field and hit Send.

DELETING MESSAGES – There are 3 ways you can delete messages

5A – In the full listing of Messages, tap Edit, top left. A column of red circles with white minus signs (horizontal lines) appear. Tap on the horizontal line in the circle of each message you wish to delete. Note the line turns vertical and a big, red delete button appears on the write. Tap to delete.

5B – In the individual Messages listings you can touch Edit on the top right, then individually click in the circle to the left of the selected message(s). Then at the bottom left hit the big red delete button., bottom left, or

5C – If you wish to delete all the messages listed with that one contact, you can simply tap on Clear All in the blue button at the top. Before the final “delete” a message will come at the bottom, in red, offering you the option to “Clear Conversation.

Lastly:
6 – When tapping on the same above-described Edit option, on the top right, you also have the choice of FORWARDING MESSAGES where you put a check mark on the left. In addition to the Delete in red there is the Forward option in blue on bottom right.

In one of my first posts here I mentioned how frustrated I was when I first got my iPhone. Since I did not readily see it, I thought there was not an alarm clock. How easy once I found it.

Click on the arrow to see a demo or read the text underneath the video.

Simple Steps to Setting Your Alarm after turning on your phone:

1 – Find the Clock icon. You’ll note mine was, by default, in the Utilities folder.
2 – Tap on the Clock.
3 – Tap on Alarm icon at the bottom of the screen.
4 – Tap on Plus sign in the upper right
5 – Slide your finger on the numbers to select Time – hour, minutes, AM or PM
6 – You’ll be at Add Alarm screen
7 – For a one-time alarm, leave the Repeat on Never
8 – If you wish the alarm to be at the same time on more than one day, tap Repeat to open it
9 – Tap on the days you want the alarm to go off at the selected time
10 – Tap Save in the upper right
11 – Tap on Back to get to main screen
12 – To add weekend or a different day or set of day, change time and
13 – Tap Repeat again to bring up the listing of days
14 – Tap on SOUND to bring up the menu for what tone or sound you would like to hear when the alarm goes off
15 – When satisfied, tap on Save in upper right

16 – If you wind up with unwanted times on the page that comes up, tap Edit on upper left.
17 – To delete tap on white minus sign in red circe(s). Then tap the Delete button.

Finally, tap on Done button in upper right. Check that the time correctly state your choice of AM or PM and that ON has been selected unless you want it off.

Today I want to share my excitement around Evernote, a free software program that you can download from the web. It can be used to quickly save notes, recipes, memos, documents, photos and much more.

I love using Evernote and I love, love, love making new discoveries and then sharing them. This morning as I was doing my daily journaling it occurred to me that I might be able to record audio notes to myself and store them by category in Evernote.

One of the benefits I have enjoyed on my iPhone is the Voice Memos feature. The challenge has been remembering what I record. If I don’t label it immediately it gets lost in a long list of memos on my phone.

As soon as I finished my journaling this morning I went to my phone, opened Evernote, clicked on the microphone icon and did a quick recording. You can also record from your computer. A little icon showed up when I was finished recording and it remained on the “new note” I had created.

Then I noticed the curved arrow, clicked on it and discovered I could email the recording, post it to Facebook or Twitter, or grab a web URL for it.

I immediately emailed it to myself, to test it, and then to some friends. In my MacIntosh email program the recording icon was right in the body of the email as I’m show below.

Some friends who received my email had to open the attachment and download it.

You can also send one to Facebook. There was the option to send it to Twitter.

Finally there was a “copy share URL to clipboard” and I got this url. Click the latter to hear the audio which I recorded directly on my computer.

In conclusion, one of the reasons I love Evernote so is that I simply title a note or notebook and it’s automatically “saved”, nothing more to click on.

You do NOT have to determine where to save it on your computer, in which folder, and then remember where I filed it.

May you, too, find the ease and joy that I’m having in using this program.

(Note – Watch for post on sharing Evernote message and audio on Facebook.)

If you have a built-in camera in your computer or a webcam, you can Video Chat on Facebook. They can see and hear you and vice-versa. There are two different ways you can open Video Chat.

Before this happens, you will need to have done a one-time download of the CHAT. Once you click on CALL, if your Friend has not done so with someone else, he/she will receive a message to download software. See the end of this post for pictures of what that process will look like.

In order to initiate the Video Chat, the person with whom you want to chat must have their Facebook page open. Then when you are on any of your pages go to the bottom of the page. On the lower right you’ll see CHAT.

Click on CHAT. A partial list of your Friends will open. Anyone who has a green dot to the right of their name is presumably on Facebook at the time you are looking at the list. Of course it is possible that they have walked away from their computer leaving the page open.

To proceed, click on your desired Friend’s name and a window will open.

To initiate Text Chat, simply type in the box at the bottom to the left of the smile face.

For Video Chat, click on the camera icon to the right of the name. Your friend will then get a message asking if they want to accept the call.

You will see the following:

The second way of initiating Video Chat – Go to your Friend’s page.

If your Friend’s Facebook page is open, you will see both the Call and Message options. Click on CALL for Video Chat.

SETTING UP VIDEO CHAT

Click on INSTALL

on WINDOWS you will see:

Follow the instructions, after which you should be able to make or receive video calls..

On A MAC

you will see first one, then the other image below. The download probably went to you desktop. Find it and click OK for each.

You should now be able to Video Chat with your friends and family on Facebook thanks to Skype technology and partnership with Facebook.